So, I'm rambling on in a Pathfinder RPG thread about my initial impression of this system/setting from Talisman Studios, and was wondering if anyone has any actual play experience with the game? It's apparently been around for a decade, but in a very limited format. I could definitely see running a campaign with this, as the mechanics are just the right mix of detail vs. story-focus for me. In addition, the setting material is quite interesting, with the built-in assumption that the characters will be multi-genre world/time hopping heroes that can aspire to demigod status. Often times settings with this approach feel fairly thrown together, but I haven't gotten that vibe from Suzerain so far. Their next big offering--Best Little Hellhouse in Texas--continues the story from The Great Below and shifts from being pirate-focused to having an Old West horror theme. Once I get my hands on that one I can verify if this approach is going to work as well as planned.
And by the way, the PDFs are possibly worth the price just for the stunning art that's inside!
The more I worked through the Thoughts from another system – Suzerain thread, the more I realized I was basically writing up a review of Suzerain. As such, I’ve decided to compile that info into one cohesive format, add in some other review thoughts on this RPG, and post it around for folks to consider. I'm still working this up (only into Section Two of the PDF thus far) but figured I'd post what I have so far.
So then, a review of Suzerain follows...
On a foray away from my D&D roots, which started back in the old days of the Red Box edition but have of late grown deeply into d20, I came across a little gem of a game called Suzerain. This is actually the second edition of Suzerain, with the first edition apparently being a limited print run from several years back by Miles M. Kantir (who played a big part in the second edition—he’s noted in the credits page ‘Original Words’ with ‘Final Words’ by Zach Welhouse). The second edition is a 52-page PDF document currently, though Talisman is looking into print-on-demand and other options for a print run. I picked my copy up for $7.50 directly from the shop at the Talisman site.
When I first opened this book, the first thing that grabbed me was the artwork. Talisman has an “art shop” heart in many ways, with some very talented artists working for them, so this came as no surprise. Aaron Acevedo and Jason Engle (both having with credits across the RPG industry, from Wizards of the Coast to White Wolf to Pinnacle) are noted for Art & Design. Every page of this document may as well have been hand-painted. Due to the nature of the Suzerain universe (more on that later) the portraits and scenes range from wild west to fantasy to sci-fi. The pages that don’t have these wonderful pieces are still adorned with custom tea-stain textures and other flourishes. This does lead to one possible complaint about Suzerain—if you’re running on a lower-end PC this volume and quality of art will definitely have a performance impact. Printing the pages out can also be both challenging and ink-intensive. Thankfully, Talisman includes a print-friendly PDF (1.82 MB vs. 42.1 MB) along with the purchase, though due to the graphics-heavy nature of the parent document, the printer-friendly version has some odd-looking layout issues. Getting this version to look proper would require an entire reformatting of the document, likely affecting page count and such, so I can see why they left this as-is.
Speaking of layout, and switching back to the fully-detailed version, I liked both the flow and presentation of the text in the PDF. They went with a fairly standard 2-column approach for most pages, with very readable font selections and sizes. The only places where the layout became an issue for me was in the last section, Feats, where 75 detailed feat blocks are squeezed a bit tightly on nine and a half pages. Once I got used to reading the blocks it wasn’t too much of an issue, but the font size drops from about 12 points down to what I’d guess is about an 8 or 9. Perhaps a compromise about midway between the normal font and this smaller one would have been better, though it would likely have bumped the page count up by several pages.
Having covered some of the basics of the document, I also wanted to touch on one other thing before getting into some of the details of each chapter—writing style. The overall feel I got from reading this document was like having a good conversation about roleplaying with a well-spoken, passionate, and funny friend. The text not only does away with any formal or bookish speech, but actively engages the reader by presenting the mechanics of the system conversationally, with examples woven throughout to help understand the concepts. Some of the side-humor even made me laugh out loud. I found this approach made it much easier for me to “get” the system, despite it being very different from the standard d20. Also unlike many products I’ve come across in the d20 market, the editing for Suzerain is excellent. In the entire document, I only recall finding two errors—the first is, actually, part of the team’s humor, as you’ll find in the credits an entry for 'Editgin: Genevra Harker.' I suppose some folks might not get it, but I found it pretty darn funny. The other was in a sentence on page 47, where it states "Here are three examples of negative feats: [u]and[/u] extreme physical one, a regular social one, and a serious mental one." I reported this to Talisman and got a response within 6 minutes! The next day, the author replied with this as well, "It's worth mentioning that each of our books is a living document that gets a 'change log'. We compile changes that need to be made and when we have enough, we issue a new version. If you've bought that book in the past, you're automatically entitled to the new version for free - all part of the service! Helping us catch typos means we're delivering a better version next time round." I definitely like that approach and level of support for providing quality products to customers.
So, with all that said, on to the actual content…
The first section of the PDF deals with Suzerain itself, both as a setting and a rule set. They start out by inviting folks to send in comments, questions, and such. I can tell you from visiting the Talisman forums that these folks are serious—they actively interact with folks on a daily basis and are very quick to respond to comments or criticism (which they take very well). The Suzerain setting is described as being both our own reality/planet as well as numerous other worlds and realms of existence, all tied together by a Pulse that provides both life and, when properly understood/harnessed, magic. The gods of our legends are one example of beings that have mastered this Pulse in their own way. This multi-verse spanning setting is presented as also integrated into the rules—you can run a game of pure fantasy, gritty pulp-noir, space opera, and pirates of the high seas all with not only the same rules, but the same characters. So, a generic system for multiple settings and genres…that’s obviously been done before, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. For Suzerain, I think they’ve got it right…
This section covers character creation, discussing both the mechanics as well as some suggestions for character conceptualization, team formations, etc. One important note about Suzeain—this PDF covers what they consider as Standard characters, those that may be a cut above the rest of the world, but are still grounded in “reality” (though that may be a reality different from ours). Future supplements will cover Hero, Demigod, and even God characters. I have seen some complaints that the PDF is not quite complete, and should have included the full advancement path. For me, considering both the price and the quality of the material I’m okay with this piece-meal approach. It also allows those that only want a system to run real-world games in to pay one low price and be done…though I suspect such folks would eventually get the bug to see what else Suzerain can do.
The character creation process starts with discussing the game with the Director (I’m sure I will forever call such folks the DM…) and with other players to work out background details, personality, etc. This is a big plus for me, not so much because it’s anything new but because it tells me they come at character creation from the same perspective as I do—build a concept, then wrap the mechanics around that.
The process then moves on to discuss Karma—the basic unit for building a character, assigning feats, and gaining future benefits. It equates in many ways to a combination of character points from a point-based system plus experience points. However, in addition to building up abilities and gaining or improving feats, Karma can be actively used in the game to do things like negate damage before it occurs, influence an action check, pay for a power that normally would require Pulse, and even barter with the director about changing events in the story. In this way, Karma also serves as a replacement for Action Points, Hero Points, Fate, and other such game-altering options from other systems. Finally, a character's total Karma determines when that character becomes eligible for Hero and higher status, opening up entirely new feat and game options.
For Abilities, Suzerain uses three categories which each have three separate but thematically similar (both across and within the categories) entries—the first entry represents power, the second finesse, and the third resilience for that category. It looks like a pretty slick system that gives a unified, balanced mechanic for describing the basics of a character. Physical abilities are constitution, strength, and dexterity. Mental abilities are willpower, intelligence, and wits. And finally Social/Spiritual abilities are spirit, presence, and charm. Characters may assign a bonus, from +1 to +3, to any of these nine abilities for a certain cost in Karma. They may also assign penalties, down to -3, to gain Karma. After character creation, Karma can be used to boost these up to as high as +5, but anything higher than that is restricted to Heroes…
One part of the system that I found particularly interesting is Suzerain's approach to "health," a unified health system derived from the three separate attributes of constitution (physical health), willpower (mental health), and spirit (spiritual or social health). Physical health measures what would be HP, wounds, or vitality in other systems; how much damage you can take before going down. The innovation (for me) comes in having mental and spiritual health as well. Using the same mechanics as for combat, then, Suzerain can mirror horror/insanity, torture/interrogation and such through "damage" to a characters mental health. This can be temporary (called stun for all three) or "permanent" and represents wearing down the character's mental faculties over time (or I suppose in one big burst if one had an actual Mental attack form as from a spell or psionics). On the Social/Spiritual side, health damage could represent impacts from diplomatic maneuvering, trying to gain influence with an organization, etc., with damage resulting in the character losing face or becoming to flustered to interact properly. I can see it also easily represents spiritual decay when being influenced/tainted by "evil" or some other metaphysical force.
In all this, the damage is far smaller than the d20 HP system and ties directly to the associated attribute, so a character might start out with 3-6 physical health and "only" progress up to 15 by the time he hits Demigod status. In this system, it's much more important for characters to never take damage if possible (Dodge or Parry/Block for Physical, for instance, are very important—I‘ll discuss those below) as they don't have the level of abstraction associated with something like HP in the d20 system.
A final derived trait is the character's Pulse, influenced by constitution, willpower, and spirit (you can see that these three are pretty important from both a health and Pulse perspective). The section talks about calculating pulse as well as recovering it and even taking spiritual stun damage, but there are no rules for actually using Pulse—those are in the supplements I mentioned earlier. This lack of anything related to using Pulse is definitely a hole in the system if you want to use just this one PDF, but I’m betting going into enough detail to suit those looking for Pulse powers would have doubled the size of the PDF.
More to come...
Finished up my review...
[size=18]Suzerain: A Universe in Gaming, by Talisman Studios[/size]
[size=18]Summary[/size]
After completing this review, I realized it was so long some folks might never read the whole thing, or even bother to start. As such, I wanted to summarize my thoughts here for a “quick hit” to those and hopefully inspire interested folks to read on…
Overall, I was impressed with Suzerain. Not only is it a beautiful work as far as art, layout, and support, I think it truly offers a solid framework for building multi-genre games that can be as complex or simple as the group desired. This PDF is, by design, the starting point for a larger system that will grow as Talisman Studios produces more settings and rules expansions. It’s a serious break from many of the systems in common play today, so players that don’t want to draw cards instead of rolling dice or that like character levels might find Suzerain too far from their expectations. However, if you’re looking for something that’s different, you won’t go wrong by picking up this PDF. Even if I never get a chance to play Suzerain, I’ve already picked up several ideas that will be influencing my d20 and Savage Worlds sessions.
[size=18]Initial Thoughts[/size]
On a foray away from my D&D roots, which started back in the old days of the Red Box edition but have of late grown deeply into d20, I came across a little gem of a game called Suzerain. This is actually the second edition of Suzerain, with the first edition apparently being a limited print run from several years back by Miles M. Kantir (who played a big part in the second edition—he’s noted in the credits page ‘Original Words’ with ‘Final Words’ by Zach Welhouse). The second edition is a 52-page PDF document currently, though Talisman is looking into print-on-demand and other options for a print run. I picked my copy up for $7.50 directly from the shop at the Talisman site.
When I opened this book, the first thing that grabbed me was the artwork. Every page of this document may as well have been hand-painted. Talisman has an “art shop” heart in many ways, with some very talented artists working for them, so this came as no surprise. Aaron Acevedo and Jason Engle (both with credits across the RPG industry, from Wizards of the Coast to White Wolf to Pinnacle) are credited with Art & Design. Due to the nature of the Suzerain universe (more on that later), the portraits and scenes range in subject matter from Wild West to fantasy to sci-fi. The pages that don’t have these wonderful pieces are still adorned with custom tea-stain textures and other flourishes. This does lead to one possible complaint about Suzerain—if you’re running on a lower-end PC this volume and quality of art will definitely mean a performance impact. Printing the pages out can also be both challenging and ink-intensive. Thankfully, Talisman includes a print-friendly PDF (1.82 MB vs. 42.1 MB) along with the purchase, though due to the graphics-heavy nature of the parent document, the printer-friendly version has some odd-looking layout issues. Getting this version to look proper would require an entire reformatting of the document, likely affecting page count and such, so I can see why they left this as-is.
Speaking of layout, and switching back to the fully-detailed version, I liked both the flow and presentation of the text in the PDF. They went with a fairly standard 2-column approach for most pages, with very readable font selections and sizes. The only place where the layout became an issue for me was in the last section, Feats, where 75 detailed feat blocks are squeezed a bit tightly on nine and a half pages. Once I got used to reading the blocks it wasn’t too much of an issue, but the font size drops from about 12 points down to what I’d guess is about an 8 or 9. Perhaps a compromise about midway between the normal font and this smaller one would have been better, though it would likely have bumped the page count up by several pages.
Having covered some of the basics of the document, I also wanted to touch on one other thing before getting into some of the details of each chapter—writing style and quality. The overall feel I got from reading this document was like having a good conversation about roleplaying with a well-spoken, passionate, and funny friend. The text not only does away with most formal or bookish speech, but also actively engages the reader by presenting the mechanics of the system conversationally, with examples woven throughout to help understand the concepts. Some of the side-humor even made me laugh out loud. I found this approach made it much easier for me to “get” the system, despite it being very different from the standard d20 rules I’ve been in for nearly a decade now. Also unlike many products I’ve come across in the d20 market, the editing for Suzerain is excellent. In the entire document, I only found two real errors. You may find a third, actually, that is part of the team’s humor—specifically in the credits an entry for 'Editgin: Genevra Harker.' I suppose some folks might not get it, but I found it pretty darn funny. The other instances were very minor (such as “and” used instead of “an”). I reported this to Talisman and got a response within 6 minutes! The next day, the author replied with this as well, "It's worth mentioning that each of our books is a living document that gets a 'change log'. We compile changes that need to be made and when we have enough, we issue a new version. If you've bought that book in the past, you're automatically entitled to the new version for free - all part of the service! Helping us catch typos means we're delivering a better version next time round." I definitely like that approach and level of support for providing quality products to customers.
So, with all that said, on to the actual content…
[size=18]Section One: Suzerain[/size]
The first section of the PDF deals with Suzerain itself, both as a setting and a rule set. They start out by inviting folks to send in comments, questions, and such (well, after taking care of their legal rights by letting everyone know this is a game and not reality). I can tell you from visiting the Talisman forums that these folks are serious—they actively interact with posters on a daily basis and are very quick to respond to comments or criticism (which they take very well).
The Suzerain setting is described as both being our own reality/planet as well as numerous other worlds and realms of existence, all tied together by a Pulse that provides both life and, when properly understood/harnessed, magic. The gods of our legends are one example of beings that have mastered this Pulse in their own way. This multi-verse spanning setting is presented as also integrated into the rules—you can run a game of pure fantasy, gritty pulp-noir, space opera, and pirates of the high seas all with not only the same rules, but the same characters. So, a generic system for multiple settings and genres…that’s obviously been done before, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. For Suzerain, I think they’ve got it right…
One note from a first-time reader/novice player perspective—the term director is introduced here and briefly explained as the person in the game that “sets a scene in a fictional realm.” The term is then used throughout the document. As a veteran of many RPG documents, I automatically understood the role of the director. If Suzerain was the first RPG I’d ever read I think the text might assume too much knowledge of this role. Not a big issue and I believe most folks that would buy this PDF are either going to already be familiar with the concept or can pick up on it pretty easily.
This section did have the one usage of graphics that wasn’t to my liking. The background used is a full 2-page spread of a universe. It’s a very nice picture, definitely depicting the infinite feel of Suzerain. However, it goes from blacks and deep blues down to a star field of mostly white and the chosen text color is white. As such, the text toward the bottom of the page washes out against the background. I’d hate to lose the piece entirely, and using a watermark/faded approach wouldn’t really do it justice. Perhaps an approach where the star field and other light objects run only in areas without text would work.
[size=18]Section Two: Characters[/size]
This section covers character creation, discussing both the mechanics as well as some suggestions for character conceptualization, team formations, etc. One important note about Suzerain—this PDF covers what they consider “Standard” character types, those that may be a cut above the rest of the world, but are still grounded in “reality” (though that may be a reality different from ours). Future supplements will cover Hero, Demigod, and even God character types. I have seen some complaints that the PDF is not quite complete, and should have included the full advancement path. For me, considering both the price and the quality of the material I’m okay with this piece-meal approach. It also allows those that only want a system to run real-world games in to pay one low price and be done…though I suspect such folks will eventually get the bug to see what else Suzerain can do.
The character creation process starts with discussing the game with the director (I’m sure I will forever call such folks the DM…) and with other players to work out background details, personality, etc. This is a big plus for me, not so much because it’s anything new but because it tells me they come at character creation from the same perspective as I do—build a concept, then wrap the mechanics around that. They also cover the need for creating characters that can function together, at least well enough to hold the story together. Another plus in my book.
The process then moves on to discuss Karma—the basic unit for building a character, assigning feats, and gaining future benefits. It equates in many ways to a combination of character points from a point-based system plus experience points. However, in addition to building up abilities and gaining or improving feats, Karma can be actively used in the game to do things like negate damage before it occurs, influence an action check, pay for a power that normally would require Pulse, and even barter with the director about changing events in the story. In this way, Karma also serves as a replacement for Action Points, Hero Points, Fate, and other such game-altering options from other systems. This empowers the player to affect the story, but at a price for character advancement (and repeated used of Karma in this way is increasingly costly—you can only push Fate/Luck so far… Finally, a character's total Karma determines when that character becomes eligible for Hero and higher status, opening up entirely new game options.
For Abilities, Suzerain uses three categories which each have three separate but thematically similar (both across and within the categories) entries—the first entry represents power, the second finesse, and the third resilience for that category. It looks like a pretty slick system that gives a unified, balanced mechanic for describing the basics of a character. Physical abilities are Constitution, Strength, and Dexterity. Mental abilities are Willpower, Intelligence, and Wits. And finally Social/Spiritual abilities are Spirit, Presence, and Charm. Characters start at 0 and may assign a bonus, from +1 to +3, to any of these nine abilities for a certain cost in Karma. They may also assign penalties, down to -3, to gain Karma. After character creation, Karma can be used to boost these up to as high as +5, but anything higher than that is restricted to Heroes…
One part of the system that I found particularly interesting is Suzerain's approach to "health," a unified system derived from the three separate attributes of Constitution (physical Health), Willpower (mental Health), and Spirit (spiritual Health). Physical Health measures what would be HP, wounds, or vitality in other systems; how much damage you can take before going down. The innovation (for me) comes in having mental and spiritual Health as well. Using the same mechanics as for combat, then, Suzerain can mirror horror/insanity, torture/interrogation and such through "damage" to a character’s mental Health. This can be temporary (called stun for all three) or "permanent" and represents wearing down the character's mental faculties over time (or I suppose in one big burst if one had an actual mental attack form as from spells or psionics). On the Social/Spiritual side, Health damage could represent impacts from diplomatic maneuvering, trying to gain influence with an organization, etc., with damage resulting in the character losing face or becoming too flustered to interact properly. I can see it also easily representing spiritual decay when being influenced/tainted by "evil" or some other metaphysical force.
In all this, the damage is far smaller than the d20 HP system and ties directly to the associated attribute, so a character might start out with 3-6 physical Health and "only" progress up to 15 by the time he hits Demigod status. In this system, it's much more important for characters to never take damage if possible (Dodge or Parry/Block for Physical, for instance, are very important—I‘ll discuss those below) as they don't have the level of abstraction associated with something like HP in the d20 system.
A final derived trait is the character's Pulse, influenced by Constitution, Willpower, and Spirit (you can see that these three are pretty important from both a Health and Pulse perspective). The section talks about calculating pulse as well as recovering it and even taking spiritual damage to fuel Pulse-related powers, but there are no rules for actually using Pulse—those are in the supplements I mentioned earlier. This lack of anything related to using Pulse is definitely a hole in the system if you want to use just this one PDF, but I’m betting going into enough detail to suit those looking for Pulse powers would have doubled the size of the PDF. On first reading through Suzerain, I actually got the impression that Pulse was something that wouldn’t come into play until the Hero status came around. However, there is a sentence on page 13 that gives a bit of insight into this…”Individual Suzerain setting books will cover the options in each world.” Rather brief, but this is very important in the future plans for this system and setting. You’ll find, for instance, a setting book out called The Great Below that provides details on various uses of Pulse for Standard characters. I’ve suggested (on their friendly forums) that a future revision of Suzerain perhaps contain a sidebar more clearly noting this approach.
The next bit, and the last step in character creation, deals with the features or “feats” that define a character beyond the base abilities. Those from the d20 world need to step back and reimagine their concept for this word—features in Suzerain describe almost everything about a character! They include race, background, social standing, money/resources, skills, and powers, as well as even negative aspects. Abilities are like the skeleton of each character, a support structure upon which everything else can build. Feats are the real meaty bits! I’ll cover some specifics on feats later (as there’s a whole section in the PDF for feats) and just touch on the character creation aspects here.
As with abilities, a character has a certain amount of Karma allotted to spend on features. You can select negative feats, like being blind, claustrophobic, or suffering from head-trauma related confusion. These add Karma to the pool for selecting positive feats, but the system thankfully places a limit on these, something I like as too much of this can lead to unplayable characters. Characters then get a few feats for free—background, homeland, and Beginner’s Luck (a little boost for new folks). With the negatives and freebies covered, characters then round out with all the important aspects of their character. Most feats have ranks and each ranks may have prerequisites before that rank can be purchased (though some feat prereqs are bypassed during character creation). It can be a complicated process when you’re just starting with the system, but you have ultimate control over absolutely every aspect of the character using this process. Standard characters (those that don’t have enough Karma to get to Hero status) are limited in the number of feats they can have. This limit doesn’t count certain things like race, negative feats, and possessions. And that brings up another important note—your possessions and resources are feats just like everything else.
And for all this character creation, Talisman does provide a well laid out character sheet at the end of the PDF (as well as providing downloads for both color and print-friendly versions with an Untamed Empires theme). The only quibble I’d have with these is it would be nice to have them form-fillable. My OCD traits come out too heavily when I try to write everything on a character sheet…
The remainder of this section covers improving the character (“leveling” for the d20 folks, though Suzerain has no character levels) and forming a team. The improvement process is very similar to character creation, but has different Karma costs for ability improvements. You can also “pay off” negative feats, effectively giving back the Karma they provided during character creation, but their must be an in-game explanation if appropriate (as with a blind character becoming able to see). The improvement process also hints again at the Hero, Demigod, and God type characters having expanded options.
The last bit on forming a team was interesting, though I would treat it as an option depending on the group. It specifically lays out establishing a team leader that not only leads the characters, but also helps the director keep things moving. An optional combat leader is also discussed. Both roles grant a bonus to that character in certain actions, and all other characters are penalized when using those actions. This is the part that leads me to say I’d treat this as optional depending on the group—some players could be put off with a forced decision that negatively impacts their character. That said, I do like this option…
[size=18]Section Three: Basic Rules[/size]
If abilities are the skeleton of a character and feats are the flesh and muscle, this section is the heart. In ten pages, the authors lay out the entire Suzerain system mechanic…well, almost since technically every feat has its own mechanics. I think this is really the key question of whether Suzerain will work or not—is the core mechanic both robust and concise enough to handle all the sub-mechanics presented by the feats without the whole system imploding. From my perspective so far, I think the answer is yes it can, but I’ll readily admit that may bear another look after adding on, say, the Hero rules plus material from 3-4 setting books.
The action resolution system for Suzerain uses a modified deck of standard playing cards, basically a base 10 system with two exceptional results (colorfully named ‘Boom’ and ‘Doom’) thrown in to spice things up. Auto-failure is possible, as are disasters and “exploding” results (i.e. drawing a maximum result means you draw again). The mechanic itself is pretty simple/standard—random number +/- character modifiers +/- situational modifiers. This always goes against the same target number regardless of the check (rather than a variable number as with the Difficulty Class in d20) so you always know what you need to get on any check rather than having to remember the varying targets for different checks. I like this mechanic as used in Savage Worlds, and so of course like it here as well. The system caps the maximum total modifier, allowing the player to choose an auto-success if he’d like. This undercuts a part of the system that I like the most, however, in comparison to something like d20—the final success of the check is tied directly to how much the result beats the target number—by the player just accepting a basic success.
The system is definitely not as cut-and-dried as something like d20, which would provide details for all sorts of modifiers. The Basic Rules instead lay this on the director to work out (and the players to trust the director). They do provide suggestions and guidelines for determining when to make checks, who makes, them, how to handle players and their creative use of feats/abilities, and finally provide a set of usual modifier ranges by character type (Standard, Hero, Demigod, etc.) for reference. I’m betting individual setting books will have situation modifies noted in various encounters/areas to ease this process for the director, but overall this is not a system that is going to hand-walk someone through running the game. This is probably a good thing for veteran role players as it allows great flexibility for storytelling, but will perhaps be daunting to someone new.
Next up is a more detailed look at the successes and failures generated by the system mechanic. Suzerain actions use a standard notation to show what a basic success means and how higher results on the check provide more benefit. For instance, you’ll find a sample weapons list available at the Talisman site called Weapons and Worlds. Therein the dagger is noted with a damage of [1+1/3]. This means that a successful check to hit with the dagger results in one damage. Exceeding the target number by three results in another point of damage, and this damage keeps stacking for each increment over the success until the player gets up into the extraordinary success area. On the other side of the cards is the incremental failure of an action check, down to a disaster. Several examples are provided illustrating how failures and disastrous results can work in the game.
Action checks are broken down into multiple types, each described in some detail to illustrate the differences. These include standard checks, multi-skill checks, double checks (doing two thins literally at the same time, but incurring a penalty), group action checks (multiple characters aiding—or hindering with disastrous check results—another character), opposed checks (trying to spot a hiding person, attacking and defending, etc.), and finally opposed group checks.
The next section covers perhaps one of the most important areas—combat. As with many systems, the Basic Rules of Suzerain break combat down into rounds. Within each round, characters get free actions (minor movement, talking, etc.) and a full action. An important distinction to note from system like d20—as doing two things in a round, say moving and attacking, could be a full action, but would be a double action check and thus incur penalties. So while in a d20 game you might move 15’ and swing at someone in a single round, in Suzerain you’d either move in one round then swing in another, or you’d attempt a double action to do both and possible hinder the attack. Just a note for the mental shift I had to make…For each round, everyone draws a card to determine reaction time (possibly modified by armor worn, and also by a Wits-based feat), declares actions in order from worst reaction time to best (allowing the best some insight into the round), adds this reaction time to an action time for whatever was declared declare, then the actions are resolved from lowest total to highest. Characters that don’t like where they fall in the cycle can cancel the action in favor of dodging or parrying. This can also be declared after a character has acted, but sacrifices his action for the next round. This whole system obviously provides some granularity to the round that is not found in systems like d20—each weapon and feat can have a different action time so choosing a fast weapon like a dagger versus a hard-hitting weapon like a great sword actually has some meaning. This granularity is probably going to be a big plus for some, and a negative for others. In play, I think as long as each player is keeping track of his own information the system should work fine. Damage, as mentioned earlier, can be against physical, mental, and spiritual Health values for the character, and is further split between stun and lethal damage (with a mechanic for converting stun to lethal once appropriate). Stun damage can be removed fairly easily with rest (an hour would get most folks in good shape). Lethal damage, on the other hand, heals much slower without medical attention.
The final section in this chapter covers what one might consider analogous to saving throws in d20—Stamina, Resolve, and Bravery. These three checks are used to cover physically, mentally, or spiritually difficult situations. A person facing a grueling run would make a Stamina check, a person that might lose concentration uses a Resolve check, and a person faced with the sight of a hideous monster would require a Bravery check. All these are pretty straight-forward and again with guidelines more than hard-and-fast rules. One additional aspect, and a bit a really liked, was a Fate check. Events that are truly random are resolved with a draw of the cards, but this check is modified by a characters current Karma. Yet another little place where the fairly simple character system has a nice, integrated use.
[size=18] Section Four: Advanced Rules[/size]
The Basic Rules cover a lot of ground, giving the framework any director would need to run a pretty fast game in Suzerain. The Advanced Rules help this along a bit by providing more detailed situation modifiers, but for me the more interesting addition is in combat. For the situational modifiers, they cover lighting, time (take more or less than average), tools and equipment, environmental conditions (like weather), off-hand actions, encumbrance, and fatigue. Some of these—lighting, time, fatigue and off-hand actions— are fairly well detailed. The rest, however, take the more general approach of guidelines as in the Basic Rules. The environmental conditions, for instance, just provides a range of suggested modifiers and encumbrance provides a range of penalties but nothing to determine when a character is actually encumbered. Compared to the detail of the other four, I’d like to see a bit more in these beyond the general guidelines, or perhaps just move them to examples in the Basic Rules situational modifier section.
And then there is Advanced Combat. This mechanic takes the Basic Rules, strips off the limitation of rounds (making your initial reaction time very important for the entire combat), and turns combat into a second-by-second breakdown that (at least in reading) looks like it would feel a lot like playing in a scene from The Matrix. I have not played this system, but this is definitely one aspect of Suzerain that I’d really like to get under my belt in actual play. I’ve read through the section three times, not because it’s necessarily complex but rather to consider the nuances and options this concept brings into play. Building from the above explanation of the Basic Rules, actions simply flow from one to the next between all involved in the combat, going of as appropriate to the reaction time + action time. They include options for interrupts (expanding the dodge/parry option from the Basic Rules), held actions (the player basically waiting until a future point after seeing other combat actions), and finally pauses (if the group chooses to use a true, real-time count to encourage quick response from players, someone delaying to long with a decision is automatically “paused” for a time). This is very different from the rounds I’m used to in other RPGs, and I think I’d have to see it in actual play three or four times to form a true opinion, but at least on paper this looks quite fun…
[size=18] Section Five: Feats[/size]
As stated earlier, feats are the real meat of this system, and also the point that will make or break this game. What would be covered in other systems by class abilities, racial traits, resources, skills, and magic systems are all summarized for Suzerain into feats—this PDF covers seventy-five that are basically available to all characters in Suzerain (though perhaps altered by setting—the Drive feat can cover riding a horse, driving a car, or piloting a star fighter). And it looks like every expansion or setting book will offer seventy-five more. That will obviously provide a lot of options, allowing character customization, setting diversity, as well as alternate approaches to use of things like Karma and Pulse. The make-or-break nature of this approach is going to be whether such an explosion of options can be presented in some standard, unified way so as to minimize learning curves without making them cookie-cutter mechanics with different flavor sprinkled on top. This would be similar to the d20 problem when a DM allows players to use any and ever book released for the system—will options be balanced against one another? Will there be so many choices/new mechanics as to present a barrier to entry for new players? I’ll be keeping this in mind as I read future Suzerain material. In regard to the feats offered in this PDF, however, I do think the similarity of mechanics like Karma cost, prerequisites, and limitations on feats that must normally be selected at character creation or awarded by the director make for an overall offering that most players should be able to readily grasp.
I noticed in general that the feats present broad guidelines for options that are more story-focused than tactical or strategic, while those things that need greater detail such as an action that will be used in combat are more tightly defined. This frees the director up to use feats and related checks to paint broad strokes for story elements like running a business and then focus down to a 1/10 of a second increment and specific check results for taunting an opponent to disrupt his combat focus. I found the offering of feats sufficiently broad to cover most general character concepts, so long as you stick with humans and largely real-world concepts. As noted earlier, the Hero and greater expansions will provider greater options in such areas, and the setting books offer specifics for races, magic systems, and such. The Lateral/Logical Thinking feats were of particular interest to me (being things I’ve not seen in other RPGs). Both provide the player with mechanics for deriving in-game conclusions that the character would likely be able to reach but the players are missing. Beyond the mundane skills, resources, and social offerings, there are also feats to cover meta-game options like influencing card draws through the use of Karma or mental/spiritual stun damage.
The last section of this chapter gives three examples of negative feats, used during character creation to get a bit more Karma for other areas of development. These are examples range from specific (blindness) to broad (personality traits), with the latter again providing general guidelines that could cover a broad range of negative traits. I do like that the authors specifically note that negative feats should be used with care in order to keep the game fun and flowing.
[size=18]A Final Note[/size]
With all these positive things, one might think I’m on the Talisman pay-roll (I’m not…). However, I did have one “major” issue with the PDF. It has entirely to do with the philosophy of electronic documents, however, rather than any specific slight on Talisman and so I left it out of the overall review. Folks that actively use PDFs will be very aware of this issue—copy-protection on the text and graphics. I know the logic for this from a business perspective, specifically not wanting your product identity easily splattered all over the Internet. However, as a person that loves to pull graphics out of a PDF for use in my games it's a little irksome. I can, of course, just do screen captures for the art and get pretty much the same thing. Once I get to products (like the setting material) with maps I'd really like to be able to get at the "best quality" graphic for printing out full-scale playing aids, but I know a lot of that is covered by other Talisman offerings in their Gamescapes line. The text, on the other hand, is more annoying. I love being able to pull specific pieces of text out of a PDF and present it to the players (this is more for setting books than the rules, so not a major issue in this review). For the actual mechanics, I'm a spreadsheet fiend. Especially with the large number of feats Suzerain offers, I'll really want to organize those all into some sort of tool for easier tracking, character creation, etc. I can obviously retype things as needed, but that's going to be a much harder route than if the text were open. The kicker is I can also take the route of using one of the now-cheap OCR tools out there to scan in the print-friendly edition and work from there, so the copy-protection on the text isn't much more than a technical/time hindrance for me. For those that would really want to pirate Suzerain, this type of work is so standard as to be a non-issue. Again, I understand Talisman's business drivers here, but I'm unsure the implementation will do more than annoy loyal customers and be a very minor speed-bump for pirates.